Freeze followed by timeout when loading into a server

[orangeyes]

Heyas,

 

I've only got the game recently and when I tried joining a server, after downloading all the server data the game gave up on me, stopping responding for several minutes and eventually kicking me back into the main menu. I tried entering the server again and again, I've never made it through, always getting the same issue. I really wish I could play the game with my friends so help would be greatly appreciated!

 

This is an example of what the console shows:

 

It's always at the same point, after the message about loading and creating biomes, and before the one about loading and parsing generator - it's not visible on the screenshot but it still gives me the message about how long loading and parsing generator took - it's usually about 5 or 6 minutes, which goes into the console well after the client times out and disconnects from the server (although i can't see them until the game screen unfreezes, which is after all those messages have gone onto the console already) - in one of the log files it looks like this:

 

Loading and parsing of generator took 373122ms

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

at WorldEnvironment.createDistantTerrain () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at WorldEnvironment.Init (.WorldCreationData _wcd, .World _world) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at World+<LoadWorld>c__Iterator0.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine.InvokeMoveNext (IEnumerator enumerator, IntPtr returnValueAddress) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

 

I looked at my memory usage and I think it might be connected to RAM - at some point it spikes up to 99-100% and that's when the game (and pretty much everything else on my computer) stops responding. For example if I'm on a discord call, it stops working. I hear someone maybe once some time in the middle of the freeze. Alt-tabbing doesn't really work, I can't bring up the task manager either.

 

Memory usage when the issue begins (screenshot):

 

I updated my graphics drivers, reinstalled the game, even tried running it in 32-bit (then it just refuses to work, giving me a message from EAC - "Untrusted system file (%SteamApps\common\7 Days To Die\7DaysToDie_Data\Plugins\XInputInterface64.dll"), but the issue persists.

I tried starting a game by myself instead, and it loaded in just fine. I'm not too knowledgable about how computers work, but the only idea that comes to my mind is that it seems like the memory is overloaded by the amount of data to load for the server I'm trying to join and the laptop just can't handle it all?

 

Running Windows 7 64-bit. Lenovo laptop. 8GB RAM. GeForce GT 755M. i7-4700MQ @2.40GHz.

The server doesn't use any mods.

 

Any ideas if I can fix it? Or is my hardware just too weak to handle the server? (just please no suggestions to get more RAM )

[SylenThunder]

Does the map you're connecting to happen to be a 12-16k map? If so, you don't have enough RAM to load it. (The client will use the pagefile, but since it's too slow, you're going to time out from the server before you get it loaded locally.) This sounds pretty much like what you have going on.

 

I'd recommend starting with 4k map servers, then if that works, step up to 8k. a17 hasn't been optimised yet, and is pretty heavy on the RAM atm.

 

Also, don't use Wifi. It could just be timing out because the connection is too slow.

[orangeyes]

Thanks for the response! Btw I just noticed that my first attachment wasn't working, I've fixed it now, so you can see the console log.

 

It seems to be a 16k map (cause that's what the biomes image size indicates, right?) - so that means my laptop just cannot load it? Or is it just too slow and gets a timeout, but if the connection didn't time out it would manage somehow? Also, is there a way to adjust the timeout timer to give my laptop more time? could that help?

 

I've tried setting up games myself - 4k and 8k seemed to work just fine (i could load into the game), while trying to generate a 16k map leads to the laptop struggling first and the game eventually crashing with these kind of errors:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28317[/ATTACH]

 

Also, any idea if low free space (<2GB) on my system partition could be adding to the issue?

[Beelzybub]

Also, any idea if low free space (<2GB) on my system partition could be adding to the issue?

I think that's a good possibility. As the game asks for more memory, Windows will create it by increasing the size of the swap file. If there's no room on the drive, it can't create the required space. If you have another drive in the system you could try moving the swapfile to a drive with more space.

[SylenThunder]

Thanks for the response! Btw I just noticed that my first attachment wasn't working, I've fixed it now, so you can see the console log.

 

It seems to be a 16k map (cause that's what the biomes image size indicates, right?) - so that means my laptop just cannot load it? Or is it just too slow and gets a timeout, but if the connection didn't time out it would manage somehow? Also, is there a way to adjust the timeout timer to give my laptop more time? could that help?

 

I've tried setting up games myself - 4k and 8k seemed to work just fine (i could load into the game), while trying to generate a 16k map leads to the laptop struggling first and the game eventually crashing with these kind of errors:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28317[/ATTACH]

 

Also, any idea if low free space (<2GB) on my system partition could be adding to the issue?

Yeah the free space will be a huge issue since your saves are stored in %appdata%\7 Days to Die, and that is typically on your main drive. A 16k map will require at least 1GB of storage there.

 

For generating larger maps, it definitely an issue with the lack of RAM. 16k Map generation will use 32GB of RAM. If you have 16GB RAM, it's slow because it uses the pagefile, but with only 8, even that isn't sufficient.

 

Once the map generation is fixed, and optimized, this will be much less of an issue.

[orangeyes]

It worked!!! Thank you so much, both of you. Hopefully I should be able to play just fine now ^_^

 

I moved the swap file to another partition with more space and extended it to 29-30GB following the information that 32GB was required to load the map. And it worked!! It took a while (almost 2 minutes for the loading+parsing generator message) but somehow it didn't time out.

 

I'm so glad it's fixed, thank you again ^_^ I hope this helps others that have a similar problem!! Seems like all you need is some free space on your disk to support your RAM. =)

[Beelzybub]

Nice! Glad it worked for you.

[orangeyes]

Well. It did work but then the same problem returned. I guess it wasn't a reliable solution after all. I still appreciate all the help though!

 

Still, I'm wondering, is there any way to extend the time after which the timeout happens, from the server admin's side? Or am i misunderstanding and it wouldn't help in my case?

[mr.natural]

Maybey increase the page files? I made them 32 GB (on a different SSD then the system runs) and the game runs better now.